


Alex Manes: A Songbook

by bean_me_up



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alex is a Musician, And Continues Beyond That, Friendship, Gently Angsty but Mostly Fluff, Gregory being a good big bro, M/M, Music, Vaguely follows s1 and s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:29:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25179997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bean_me_up/pseuds/bean_me_up
Summary: 5 times Alex Manes wrote music, and 1 time someone wrote a song for him.
Relationships: Alex Manes & Gregory Manes, Alex Manes & Kyle Valenti, Forrest Long/Alex Manes, Maria DeLuca & Alex Manes & Liz Ortecho, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 10
Kudos: 75





	Alex Manes: A Songbook

When Gregory Manes is twelve years old, he scrapes together enough money to buy a guitar from the boy who lives across the street, who's off to college and happy to get rid of the guitar he never actually learned how to play. It's a cheap beginner's instrument, hard to tune and with scratches on the body, but to Gregory, it's _magic._ He's not the most naturally talented musician, but he's diligent, memorizing chords and picking his way through exercises as he learns how to play. He doesn't _hide_ the guitar, exactly, but he does keep it out of the way and only takes it out when he's by himself. He's got three brothers, and he's not inclined to share the little piece of calm he's carved out for himself.

Of course, it's Alex who makes him break his own rules, on a cold rainy night as the thunder boomed in the sky. Their dad's out of town, so when the thunder gets too loud and the lightening flashes too bright, Alex shuffles past his usual hiding spots and makes his way to Gregory's room instead. He knocks tentatively on the door, then slips inside when Gregory calls him in. He climbs into bed next to Greg, who scoots over to make room and wraps an arm around his brother. Alex jumps at every loud crash of thunder as Gregory rubs his back, not showing any sign of going back to sleep. Gregory sighs and leans over his brother to grab the guitar leaning against the bed.

"Wanna play some music, Alex?"

Alex looks at him, wide-eyed. Gregory's never actually _played_ for anyone before, but he figures his eight year old brother will be a sympathetic audience, and maybe this will soothe the kid enough to actually get some sleep. Alex reaches out a hand to touch the guitar before pulling it back quickly. "Yes, please."

Gregory shifts so the body of the guitar is in Alex's lap instead. "Here, this is how you strum it." He demonstrates, then hands the pick over. "You want to try?"

Alex copies his motion, smiling at the sounds he's producing. "Like this?"

"Exactly like that, Alex. Now if you move your other hand like this, you can make different sounds, see?"

He can't quite press down hard enough on the strings, so Greg does that part for him, moving through a simple chord progression. "That's so _cool,_ Greg." Alex's voice is all childlike wonder, and Gregory smiles.

"You just mix a bunch of chords together and strum like you're doing now, and that's a song right there."

Alex is in awe. "Can we write a song right now?"

Gregory can't find it in himself to tell Alex, _no, it's time to go to sleep,_ so instead, he pulls his notebook out from under the mattress. "You got any lyrics in mind, kid?"

About an hour later, Alex is fast asleep and Gregory's notebook has a new song in it. It's messy and doesn't make a lot of sense, since Greg was mostly writing about the girl from his math class with the really pretty hair, and he's pretty sure Alex was writing about the remote-control truck he'd gotten for his last birthday. But Alex is snoozing quietly with a little smile on his face, so Greg counts it as a success.

* * *

Alex Manes forms his first band at age 11. Granted, it only lasts four days, and they perform exactly once to an audience of three (Jim, who cheers and claps enthusiastically, Flint, who looks unimpressed, and Clay, who spends most of the performance looking at his watch because he needs to get his brothers home before he can go to the party one of the other varsity wrestlers was throwing).

Kyle (his one other band mate) is about five weeks into piano lessons, and can really only manage to play with one hand at a time, and Alex still struggles to play the guitar (borrowed from Greg for the occasion) and sing at the same time. But still, they write three songs and take a bow at the end of their concert, grinning, and Alex lets himself dream about a future where _this_ is his life.

Well, maybe the audience is a little bigger in his fantasies, but he wishes on every shooting star and birthday candle and dandelion puff he can find for years, wishes that he'll somehow give the Manes legacy the slip and spend his days singing and playing his guitar.

He keeps the composition notebook containing the band's songs written in Kyle's illegible scrawl, keeps writing, adding on to it, until the notebook is filled. Then he buys another, and another, and keeps going because the way he feels with a guitar in his hand is like _magic_. It's his escape, his sanctuary, his oasis in the desert that he's never felt at home in.

A few months later, when Kyle finally persuades his mom to let him quit piano lessons, he trades Kyle five of his best comic books for the little keyboard he'd been practicing on. Alex knows keyboards are cost way more than five comic books, but Kyle says he got Jim's permission to make the trade, so Alex takes the keyboard and a marked up copy of _Alfred's Basic Piano Library: Lesson 1_ and treats them like treasure. He learns to play, appreciating the range of the piano and the sweet sounds, but misses the feel of the strings against the pads of his fingers.

He learns to write songs on keyboard, too. Harmony and melody and counterpoint and rhythm and it all feeds Alex's soul in a way nothing else does. He dreams a little louder now. He doesn't dare speak it aloud, knows that his father wants him to join the military like Clay's going to, like Greg probably will, like Flint wants to. Manes men weren't meant to make music. But when the house finally goes quiet at night, Alex plucks at his guitar and experiments with chords on his keyboard and scribbles in his composition notebooks full of songs and lets himself dream about a future where he has the courage to shed the weight of his last name and forge a path for himself.

* * *

When they're fifteen years old, Liz Ortecho and Maria DeLuca spend a little too much time watching music videos, and decide their new dream is to be backup dancers for a famous singer. There aren't exactly any famous singers hanging around Roswell, so they decide to bet on potential and enlist Alex to help them fulfill their dreams.

Maria puts costumes together, Liz gets her dad's permission to move the tables in the Crashdown for rehearsal space, and Alex brings the guitar Greg left behind when he shipped out and a notebook full of songs. The costumes smell strongly of Mimi's favorite patchouli, most of the tables in the Crashdown are bolted down and can't actually be moved, and Alex's guitar has seen better days, but they make it work.

The enthusiasm lasts for exactly a week before Liz is back to reading science textbooks for fun and Maria is pirating a copy of Photoshop to make fliers to boost business for the Wild Pony. Alex loves every second of it. He gets to scream-sing songs he wrote and a few covers beside with his best friends in the world, while they try to choreograph dance moves and avoid bumping into the tables. It's exactly the sort of freedom he has never had, to be silly and loud and ridiculous and not worried about _decorum_ or _posture_ or _respect_ or any of the other ways in which he disappoints his father.

Toward the tail end of the week, they're taking a water break and Liz and Maria are flipping through Alex's songbook as he tries to tune his guitar. He needs to get a job soon so he can afford a better instrument. Alex abandons his efforts and props his chin on Maria's shoulder so he can see what songs she and Liz are looking at and freezes. The girls are flipped to the far back page, folded up on itself and covered in a million pen scratches. The song itself is unfinished and Alex doesn't know if he'll ever finish it because it's a love song. About another boy. He tries to think of a way to explain this away. Liz and Maria know he's gay, but his first, second, and every instinct after that tell him that them seeing such clear proof of it will not end well.

Maria, perceptive as ever, must notice _something_ is off with him, because she turns to wrap an arm around him and pulls him in close. "I like this song," she says, softly. "But. . ." her voice goes from gentle to teasing. "As per the best friend code, you gotta share with the rest of us if you have a crush on someone."

"It's not about anyone." Alex still can't look up from the frayed ends of his shirt sleeves as he fidgets with his hands.

Liz looks up. "Ooooh so this is about your fantasy man? Your perfect boyfriend? The one you'd give your _final rose_ to?"

"Is that a _Bachelor_ reference, Liz?"

"Don't change the subject, Alex."

Maria plucks a pencil from her bag. "Want some help finishing the song?"

Liz grabs the pencil from her first, scribbling some words down on the page. "I'll help too!"

In the end, they finish the song together. It's a song about another boy, written for Alex's voice. Alex's lyrics are vague at best, Liz's are hyperspecific and sound a little too much like they describe Kyle Valenti, and Maria's are overly flowery, but he finds himself humming the tune of it over and over again.

* * *

Alex puts all of his music equipment in his living room, in front of the big bay window. It feels a little bit like rebellion.

Moving into his own home had been a _process._ He'd never had his own space like this before. His bedroom as a child had been plain at best and military barracks didn't exactly allow for interior design creativity. The shed had had a few posters tacked up, but those were mostly stuck on in a desperate attempt to make it feel _safe,_ let him pretend for a bit like everything wasn't so awful he preferred a _shed_ to his own home.

Every colorful vase and embroidered throw pillow and comfy blanket he buys feels like he's chipping away at years of pretending to be something he's not, won't ever be. And he's pretty excited to try to find the _Alex_ underneath it all. The one thing he does know is that he wants music back in his life, in a way that's out and loud and in the open.

So he puts his keyboard right in front of the window, sticks his guitar stands next to it, then figures out the rest of his furniture from there. It's a promise to himself and he wants the reminder. Now, in his quiet moments, he opens the blinds to let in the sunshine or the starlight and sits at his piano and puts melody to the storm inside his head.

He starts a new notebook, fills it with snippets of songs, scattered thoughts, random doodles, and full-on, rambling, multi-page essays. When Forrest finally convinces him to sing for an open mic, he flips through it, tries to condense the mess of it all into a three minute song.

In the end, he comes up with the music first. Chords and melody that stick in his head and won't let him go. So he goes back through the notebook, looks for the lyrics that fit the song his hands want to play. It ends up somewhere between a plea and a eulogy for his first love. He wonders, if he sings this, if Michael will hear him.

In the end, Michael leaves, and Alex lets the song close their chapter. And, later, when he's cradling Forrest's face in his hands and kissing him until the noise of the crowd fades and the lights dull and he can't feel the sticky floor under them anymore, he thinks he's ready to begin a new one.

* * *

Forrest asks Alex to teach him how to play piano. Alex suspects it's mostly an excuse to cuddle up to him on the piano bench, but even though piano lessons usually end up with their hands all over each other rather than the keys, Forrest learns quickly.

"I took lessons as a kid," he explains. "But I gave it up."

Alex wraps an around him to gently reposition his hand. "What made you decide to pick it up again?"

"A really sexy piano teacher." Forrest grins and pulls Alex in for a kiss. He pulls away, goes back to the keys. "Also, I was hoping we could work together on a song."

Alex rests his head on his shoulder. "I'd like that," he says softly. "But why do you need to learn piano for us to do that?"

"I like watching you play guitar. And you seem to like playing it more."

"Guitar was the first instrument I learned how to play. It just feels like. . ."

"Like what?"

"Home."

Forrest hums, pulls one hand off the keys to interlace his fingers with Alex's. "You look happy with a guitar in your hand." He presses a kiss to Alex's knuckles and stands, grabbing a guitar off a stand and putting it in his hands. "And I like seeing you happy." He loops his arms around Alex's shoulders and presses a kiss to his head.

It takes them a while to finish their song, mostly because Forrest finds it _very_ difficult to keep his hands to himself when Alex is in musician mode. The song is soft and hopeful, and they play it over and over again in Alex's sunlit living room until it starts to feel a little bit like home.

* * *

Michael doesn't remember the first time he picked up an instrument. But somewhere, sometime in the noise and turbulence and chaos and anxiety that provided the backing score to his childhood, he found quiet in the feeling of his fingers on frets.

He'd never been much for song writing, never owned a guitar, never had music in his life with any dependable regularity. He just like to strum, let his fingers feel out chords, and revel in the _calm_ he finally felt, however temporary. But after seeing Alex perform that night at the Wild Pony, watching Alex be _free_ and _happy,_ he'd wanted those feelings for himself. Don't get him wrong, he'd wanted _Alex_ even more, but he'd meant it when he'd said he wanted to be good for someone. And he wanted to be good for Alex, sure, but he's chasing the feeling of being comfortable in his own skin even more.

He turns to song writing. It takes a year. Of dealing with Max's evil clone and dismantling the remains of the Manes family's decades-long war against his species. Of working through the backlog of trauma and hurt and secrecy that's weighed him down for as long as he can remember. Of getting his life sorted out, looking for a future instead of scraping by in the present while dragging the past behind him. And he writes through it all. Snippets of songs and bits of music and he finds _calm._

When he's finally ready, he sneaks his name onto Forrest's roster for open mic while Alex sets up sound equipment. They'd broken up months ago, but stayed friends, running open mic nights together. Michael sits through exactly 3 overwrought poets, 4 country singer-songwriter wannabes, a painful Britney Spears cover, and finally it's his turn.

"Thanks for havin' me. This one's dedicated to someone special. This is me, not looking away."

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hello on [tumblr](https://stars-and-sunshine.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
